In recent years more philanthropies have started to invest in local news and news literacy programs.
“Professional journalism is vital to the public good in all shapes and forms. As market conditions have changed, philanthropy is definitely stepping up and serving a role in making sure professional journalism survives and thrives,” said Tracy Hernandez, chief executive of the Los Angeles County Business Federation, former publisher of the Los Angeles Daily News and board member to the Crosstown nonprofit newsroom based out of USC. “To me, it’s absolutely critical that big philanthropy value local journalism.”
Some philanthropies are now helping fund local news directly while others are creating nonprofit news organizations.
The number of local nonprofit news organizations more than doubled in the last six years, according to data from the Institute for Nonprofit News, based in Beverly Hills.
“Nonprofit news is the very hot thing right now,” said Stacy Palmer, chief executive of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. “Lots of foundations are coming together to save local news.
“There’s a tremendous concern in philanthropy about the fact that our democracy fails if we don’t have strong, local journalism,” she added.
Palmer said many philanthropies also see strong local journalism as a way of furthering other issues, making sure there is not misinformation, civic engagement is high and officials are held accountable.
“For a lot of philanthropies, it’s the second cause,” she said.
Another reason we are seeing more nonprofit news models, Palmer said, is that there are a number of family-run newspapers without a successor that could switch to the nonprofit model.
One local philanthropy that has become active in investing in local news and news literacy is The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, based in downtown.
Earlier this year the organization announced a three-year, $1.15 million grant to support a partnership between The News Literacy Project and the Los Angeles Unified School District. The funding will be used to help students learn news literacy skills.
The Foundation is also one of the first backers of the L.A Local News Initiative, a recently announced nonprofit aimed at improving local news in L.A.
Gerun Riley, president of the Broad Foundation, said the group was looking to “invest in the future of Los Angeles” and the initiative was one way to do so. She added that the foundation would “fund ideas that would make a meaningful difference years from now” and were not just “quick fixes.”
“The two grants are very complementary,” Riley said. “The News Literacy Project is recognizing that there’s been a shift in how people consume and interact with the news, and we really want to make sure that young people develop the skills to be able to interact with news to differentiate fact from fiction and identify reputable and verifiable sources of news and use that news in a productive way.”
New local news initiative
The L.A. Local News Initiative launched earlier this year with $15 million and backing from media and philanthropy leaders in the area.
The organization will be overseen by board chair Monica Lozano, the former editor, publisher and chief executive of La Opinión; Kevin Merida, former executive editor of the Los Angeles Times; Giselle Fernandez, an anchor at Spectrum News; Riley; and Michael Ouimette, chief investment officer of the American Journalism Project.
Initial funding comes from anchors Broad Foundation, the Spiegel Family Fund, and the American Journalism Project. The Annenberg Foundation, Weingart Foundation, California Community Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, Jane and Ron Olson, Leslie Weisberg and Jim Hyman and Lozano are also backers.
“Thousands of communities no longer have local news, or have local news that is contracting,” Sarabeth Berman, chief executive of the American Journalism Project, said. “The data on the implications of this on our civic discourse is very clear and it is quite worrisome. The communities that lack local news are less likely to vote…government is less accountable…and we see government waste go up.”
The AJP makes grants to nonprofit, local news organizations across the country. Since 2019 it has committed more than $60 million and raised roughly $180 million.
The L.A. Local News Initiative will start by launching a news organization to operate the Boyle Heights Beat and will launch similar publications next year. It also plans on investing in LAist and has formed partnerships with 20 additional media outlets and universities.
Lozano said conversations for the initiative started almost two years ago. She called the reaction since the initial announcement of the organization “uplifting.”
“People understand what’s at stake,” she said. “We need to make an investment, and we cannot just sit on the sidelines as news organization after news organization continues to shrink.”
Lozano added that the group would “bring together organizations that are already doing excellent work” as well as “incubate and launch new publications.”
“Our belief is that it will require this broad-based coalition of partners coming together to support each other and to work together to fill this void,” she added.
Lozano said the L.A. Local News Initiative was still in the “very early stages.” It is currently seeking a chief executive and an executive editor and building out its infrastructure.
“Our goal is over a short period of time to have a newsroom of about 30 individuals that would be additive to the local news ecosystem,” Lozano said.
Riley said in the long term there are five outcomes the Broad Foundation is hoping to see, including more civic engagement and access to trusted information.
Journalists hired with funding from the nonprofit will report to editors at the news outlet they are hired for directly.
Looking ahead
Lozano said it’s important to “fill that void and be innovative in our approach (on increasing local news) and on how we do that and to recognize that if the old model is no longer reliable in terms of supporting and sustaining local news and journalism in general, then what are some new models that we could introduce and that is precisely what we are doing.”
“We have an obligation as a country to ensure that people have the tools in their disposal to allow them to participate fully in our democracy,” she added.
She said she hopes the initiative will serve as a model for other urban areas. Riley agreed.
“We are hopeful that other communities across the country and other philanthropic groups across the country see local news as a foundation to the success and the health of their community and that this would be a good model,” she said.
Palmer added that while she does not expect to see money going to local news as a major share of the money donated by philanthropies annually, it “could double in size from what it is now.”
Berman added that she is seeing more communities recognize the need for local news and more philanthropies donating capital.
“It took a generation for the newspaper industry to unravel and we think it will take a generation for it to rebuild,” Berman said. “It’s important that this issue is taken on by more than just the journalism industry.”
